Hmm...I always wondered how that worked. I've got a VCR with commercial skip that works pretty well. Occasionally it'll miss one, but not too often.
You're right about the networks changing the codes, but right now they're concentrating on the growing DVR market. The downside of TiVo is that you can't edit on it. If that were the case, the advertising industry would be all over it. And because the system you have and ones like it aren't that prevalent in homes, they are small potatoes right now. Replay was the enemy a few years ago, TiVo is in the hotbox now. BTW, check the VCR listings in electronics catalogs. Hardly any of them mention the commercial-skip, even though most of them are capable of doing it. Just one more way of keeping out of the limelight. rob Lee Larson wrote: > On Jan 13, 2005, at 12:40 PM, Rob Kersting wrote: > > > Actually, it's the beginning of the end for us, not the TV business. > > Advertisers and TV execs have found it much harder to sell TV time > > because > > of all of us skippers, so they've decided on a different strategy. > > > > Sometime in the next couple of months our TiVo boxes will receive new > > software that will show us advertisements while we're skipping through > > the > > ads. I'm not sure how it will work but it's coming soon. > > They can do that to Tivo, but they can't do that to MythTV because it's > open source software that anyone can download to use or modify in any > way they want. Besides, right now the skipping a whole string of > commercials with Myth doesn't even take a second. How long does it take > on a Tivo? > > I can see one change they will make that will affect Myth. Right now > Myth looks for the commercial warning codes to the TV stations put > there by the networks. They are invisible to viewers because they're > hidden in the vertical blanking part of the TV signal. Myth can use > these codes to automatically cut out all commercials in recordings. I'm > pretty sure the VBL coding will be "fixed" by the networks to make this > impossible. | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
